Mabel+Brock

On September 23, 1907, 27-year-old homemaker Mabel Brock of Lake Station, Indiana, died in Chicago's John Streeter Hospital. The coroner's jury determined that she had died from an abortion perpetrated by midwife Mrs. Lobbie from Hobart, Indiana on September 5.

Mabel's abortion was unusual in that it was not [|performed by a physician].

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see [|Abortion Deaths 1900-1909].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database]
 * Death certificate



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